Time to Attack Clutter

This article is less about one specific feature and more about utilizing QBO as a tool to reduce clutter. If you think of clutter as unfinished tasks, it makes it easier to identify why it happens and how to reduce it from your life.

I’m looking around my house at the aftermath of a successful Halloween, and I’m reminded that life is full of clutter. The bats, spider webs and goblins now seem out of place. It’s time to move forward to other seasonal events.

Liz and Family - Halloween 2016

My Trick or Treat family: Yes, my daughter, Valerie, wanted to be the Easter Bunny for Halloween and found her costume hilarious. My twins don’t often want the same stuff, but neither could resist the desire to run around in a race car.

There is a parallel between what’s happening around us and inside us. Mentally, I’m ready to move on. I’m ready to prepare for the next round of life’s fun events, but the clutter around me is stuck in time, so I must make the outside match the inside.

Finishing the cycle of Halloween means – placing masks, spiders and decorations in tubs and removing the Halloween clutter so we can move forward with the holidays.

The same can be said about our clients’ books. The clusters of Halloween are the same as the clusters of receipts waiting to be entered into books. The cycle must be completed in order to reduce clutter and move forward.

Receipt Shoebox

Sometimes our clients get stuck not knowing how to perform some specific bookkeeping task. Such cases represent our opportunity to show them how to embrace QBO to finish tasks and reduce unnecessary clutter.

Maybe they need processes for capturing receipts or schedules on a calendar that states every Friday is invoicing day. Whatever their need, it’s our role to listen and guide them into success.

QBO On The Go

QBO is designed to help transition from event to event

Today, people have busy mobile lives, and QBO is designed to catch the clutter, sort it out and store tasks.

Yes, many of these same features are found in QBD, but the difference is QBO allows us to be virtually anywhere and everywhere. QBO is carried in our pocket on one of our best and most used devises – the smartphone.

Processing transactions from anywhere

Estimates can be turned into invoices and emailed to customers. And the payments can be collected while using QBO from any location. This greatly reduces the amount of paper pushing that gobbles up valuable time and desk space.

QBO Receipt Capture

QBO Bundles 1 - fig 1

Conclusion

We as ProAdvisors must train ourselves and our clients to de-clutter and finish the task cycle.

One of the most common issues I see occurs when a small business creates an invoice and receives payment, but never creates the deposit. We must help them see and understand how to properly finish the cycle of income.

When users get comfortable using QBO, whether at their desktop or inside an app, they will be more likely finish their tasks instead of leaving them hanging around as clutter.

Let’s help our clients eliminate the shoebox and those piles of other tasks from that shoebox.